Friendly foreign governments could begin traveling to Kinston and shopping for armored military vehicles if a plan comes to fruition.

With the last of American combat troops leaving Iraq in 2011, and the continued draw-down of forces in Afghanistan, there’s the issue of not only sending personnel home, but their equipment as well.

State Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata said at a North Carolina Global TransPark Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday he’d like to work the GTP into U.S. Department of Defense plans for disposing of mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) – vehicles specifically designed to hold up against attacked with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There was this proposal to use the Global TransPark – and many of you veterans probably know about this, and some of the new folks may not, but there is this notion that all of this equipment that is coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan needed to go somewhere,” Tata said. “And, I can vouch for and verify that having been a deputy commanding general in Afghanistan in ‘07, there are three sets of equipment that the Army and Marine Corps essentially have.”

Tata said the first set of vehicles were especially prone to IED attacks, and as an interim measure, Army and Marine units “up-fitted” Humvees and trucks with armor. The Pentagon announced the first of the MRAPs in 2007, which took their place.

The initial set of vehicles are being destroyed altogether and sold for scrap, Tata said, and the second set are being sold or given away to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. MRAPs are being shipped back to the United States.

The Washington Post reported in June the MRAP project cost about $50 billion, and some of the $1 million vehicles are being destroyed overseas in order to meet withdrawal deadlines. The ones that make it back, however, are being fixed up at places like the Anniston (Ala.) Army Depot.

Tata said he went to Army Gen. Ann Dunwoody – then commanding general of the U.S. Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. – to see about making the GTP an MRAP refurbishment site. The vehicles would arrive at the Port of Morehead City and head to Kinston by rail.

Dunwoody turned down the proposal – the Anniston depot was underutilized – but said the GTP could serve as a place for foreign governments to inspect and purchase the vehicles.

“It would be like a giant auto lot, for lack of a better term,” Tata said.

The Army runs a similar operation at Sierra Army Depot in Herlong, Calif.

Rudy Lupton, director of logistics for the state Department of Transportation, said if the plan comes together, the vehicles would take over an unused part of the jetport.

Page 2 of 2 - “We could set up a reset facility here where those vehicles are brought back, repaired and groomed, and they’re basically placed in a setting where people can come look at them for foreign military sales,” Lupton said.

For the vast majority of the GTP board meeting, though, board members went over the basics of GTP operations and took tours of the facilities.

“This meeting was primarily an introductory, informational meeting,” said Alanna King, GTP marketing director. “We had a lot of new board members this meeting, so this was kind of an orientation for all of them, more than taking any kind of official action.”

The next board meeting is scheduled for January.

Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.